Vanguard

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"Nobody is safe. Not the voter, not the journalist, not anybody!" The fears of Femi Adesina, president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, is echoed by stakeholders and observers of Nigeria's general election. Amid the tension in the run up to presidential and federal parliamentary elections on March 28, and governor and state parliamentary elections on April 11, journalists can be easy targets.

Nigerian authorities have been waging widespread attacks on nearly a dozen independent newspapers under the cover of fighting terrorism. By last weekend, no fewer than 10 newspapers had their operations nationwide disrupted, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of newspaper sales.

New York, June 6, 2014--The Nigerian military this morning
confiscated or destroyed copies of at least four leading newspapers, Punch, Leadership,Vanguard, and
TheNation, around the country, according to news
reports. A defense official claimed that authorities were looking for "materials
with grave security implications," the reports
said.

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A
radical militant Islamist group released an 18-minute video on May 1, 2012, that
threatened attacks on at least 14 local and international news outlets,
according to news reports. In the video, Boko Haram, a group seeking the
imposition of Sharia law in northern Nigeria, accused the outlets of biased
reporting and crimes against Islam and also claimed responsibility for prior
attacks on newspapers, news reports said.

On World Press Freedom Day last week,
Nigeria's Information Minister, Labaran Maku, publicly asserted that the
country's media "is one of the freest in the universe." On paper, Nigeria's
1999 Constitution
guarantees the freedom of the press to "uphold...the responsibility and
accountability of the government to the people." But seven journalists who
attempted to put this principle to practice on World Press Freedom Day
experienced a different reality -- one all too common for independent
journalists working in Africa's most populated nation.